02024cam a22002657 4500001000600000003000500006005001700011008004100028100002000069245009900089260006600188490004100254500001800295520094500313530006101258538007201319538003601391690005701427690006501484700001801549710004201567830007601609856003701685856003601722w8708NBER20171213213623.0171213s2002 mau||||fs|||| 000 0 eng d1 aRauch, James E.10aEntrepreneurship in International Tradeh[electronic resource] /cJames E. Rauch, Joel Watson. aCambridge, Mass.bNational Bureau of Economic Researchc2002.1 aNBER working paper seriesvno. w8708 aJanuary 2002.3 aMotivated by evidence on the importance of incomplete information and networks in international trade, we investigate the supply of 'network intermediation.' We hypothesize that the agents who become international trade intermediaries first accumulate networks of foreign contacts while working as employees in production or sales, then become entrepreneurs who sell access to and use of the networks they accumulated. We report supportive results regarding this hypothesis from a pilot survey of international trade intermediaries. We then build a simple general-equilibrium model of this type of entrepreneurship, and use it for comparative statics and welfare analysis. One welfare conclusion is that intermediaries may have inadequate incentives to maintain or expand their networks, suggesting a rationale for the policies followed by some countries to encourage large-scale trading companies that imitate the Japanese sogo shosha. aHardcopy version available to institutional subscribers. aSystem requirements: Adobe [Acrobat] Reader required for PDF files. aMode of access: World Wide Web. 7aF20 - General2Journal of Economic Literature class. 7aJ41 - Labor Contracts2Journal of Economic Literature class.1 aWatson, Joel.2 aNational Bureau of Economic Research. 0aWorking Paper Series (National Bureau of Economic Research)vno. w8708.4 uhttp://www.nber.org/papers/w870841uhttp://dx.doi.org/10.3386/w8708